Big Two-Hearted River Quotes

“He sat on the logs, smoking, drying in the sun, the sun warm on his back the river shallow ahead entering the woods, curving into the woods, shallows light glittering, big water-smooth rocks, cedars along the bank and white birches, the logs warm in the sun, smooth to sit on, without bark, gray to the touch; slowly the feeling of disappointment left him.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River

“Hemingway loved fishing from the time he was old enough to use a rod. In Paris, he was an ocean and more away from his home waters in Michigan. The separation intensified the writing. While he worked on the story, he kept a map of northern Michigan posted in his apartment, with blue marks for significant locations. In succeeding drafts, he stripped the story down to one disturbed person moving through a dreamlike, almost hallucinatory landscape of distorted reality.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River: The Centennial Edition